Diagnosis of Infections

Medical diagnosis is the process of determining which disease or condition explains a person's symptoms and signs. Laboratory tests may identify organisms directly (e.g., visually, using a microscope growing the organism in culture) or indirectly (e.g., identifying antibodies to the organism). General types of tests include microscopy, culture and immunologic tests (agglutination tests such as latex agglutination, enzyme immunoassays, western blot, precipitation tests and complement fixation tests) and nucleic acid/ non nucleic acid based identification methods. Sub types of diagnoses include clinical, laboratory, radiology, principal and admitting diagnosis. Advanced methods have been implemented to diagnose the infection in any part of the body. Examples include biomarkers/ elisa test/ chest x ray/ skin biopsy/ tympanometry and tympanocentesis.